Topics

1

Your Turn / Dan Selbo's election as NALC Bishop

« on: August 12, 2019, 12:20:04 PM »

Any thoughts about Pr. Dan Selbo's election as NALC Bishop. I have a very favorable impression from the summer of 2015 when I attended St. Timothy's in San Jose while working a temporary job in that area. 

2

Your Turn / The Proposed NALC Application to join the Lutheran World Federation

« on: August 03, 2012, 10:54:34 AM »

The NALC will consider a proposal to submit an application to join the LWF at this year's NALC convention between 16-17 August 2012. Part of the resolution reads:

“Full membership within
the Lutheran World Federation
does not require, nor imply, altar
and pulpit fellowship with all
member Lutheran bodies. ... It is
a present reality that certain
member Lutheran bodies within
the Lutheran World Federation
understand themselves to be in
impaired communion with certain
other member Lutheran bodies.”

This language was inserted to suggest that the NALC did not want membership in the LWF to be construed as a declaration of alter and pulpit fellowship with the ELCA and ELCIC. See:
<http://thenalc.org/documents/news-letters/2012/NALC-News-June-2012.pdf>

However, it is the position of the LWF's position that membership in the LWF means you are in alter and pulpit fellowship with all other members.
<http://www.lutheranworld.org/lwf/index.php/who-we-are/faith>

So what to make of the language of the proposal.  Are we stating that we don't want to live up to the values of the LWF (for which the NALC may or may not have good reason, I leave that aside) because the LWF doesn't live up them in practice? 

I suppose that trying to join the LWF could be seen as an expression of our church's "centrism" and that joining something gives our theologians forums to participate in.  But what does being in the "center" mean when we've made clear that we view the body we emerged from as being flat wrong on too many topics?  (This is not meant as yet another swipe at the ELCA, just an observation about the NALC.)  But rather than asserting that the NALC "embodies the theological center of Lutheranism in North America" should we not "strive to follow the path of truth" where ever that takes us?